Apr 082021
 
 April 8, 2021  Posted by at 8:42 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,


James McNeill Whistler Nocturne in Blue and Silver, The Lagoon, Venice 1880

 

Covid Passports Could Be Required For Clothes Shopping (Ind.)
Notre Dame Is The Latest University To Require Students To Get A Vaccine (F.)
Among the Covid Sceptics (G.)
Anti-Vax & Anti-Tax – 2 Huge Trends of 2021 –Gerald Celente (USAW)
Scenes From 2030 (TE Creus)
YouTube Removes Recent DeSantis Public Health Roundtable (JTN)
Inflation: Making the Complex, Simple – Part 1 (RIA)
Peak Woke (Jim Kunstler)
Biden Admin Plots Revenge On Russia For Alleged Hacking, Meddling (ZH)
Veteran Intelligence Officials Urge Biden To Avoid War In Ukraine (ZH)
Russia Unlikely To Send Recalled Ambassador Back To Washington (RT)
Putin Poised To Set Out Vision For Future In Dramatic Speech (RT)
Humans Were Apex Predators For Two Million Years (Phys.org)
Can Blood from Young People Slow Aging? (NW)

 

 

 

 

Flip flop idiocy.

Covid Passports Could Be Required For Clothes Shopping (Ind.)

“Covid passports” could be required for customers visiting clothes shops in England after the removal of lockdown restrictions on 21 June, Downing Street has indicated. The idea provoked horror among retailers, with one trade body describing it as neither “appropriate or useful”. A briefing document on Monday confirmed the government is considering the introduction of “Covid-status certification” as lockdown eases, so that individuals wanting to enter premises can prove that they have either been vaccinated, recently tested or gained immunity through previous infection. The report said that ministers believe shoppers should never be required to supply such proof in order to use “essential” retail venues, but did not make clear exactly which shops were exempted.


Boris Johnson said no decision had been made on whether to require certification domestically, but said that it would not come into force during stages two and three of England’s lockdown relaxation, due to begin on 12 April and 17 May. Pressed today on whether shoppers could eventually be asked for their vaccine passport to enter shops like Next or H&M, the prime minister’s official spokesman did not rule it out. Asked whether clothes shops would use Covid status certificates, the spokesman said only: “We have been clear that we will not require them as businesses reopen in stages two and three of the roadmap. “But again the PM was clear that longer term there will some essential services such as essential retail and public transport where they will not be required.”

Read more …

From The One Year Emergency . Feb 4:

“Vaccination is not a prerequisite for the exercise of any other institutional requirement, such as education or otherwise recognized basic right such as the right to employment and free movement. Correspondingly, no private company has the legal authority to impose restrictions violating citizens’ constitutional rights. Discrimination and Stigmatization are forbidden (Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights, UNESCO). Moreover, imposition of a medical action in any manner constitutes torture and is illegal.”

Notre Dame Is The Latest University To Require Students To Get A Vaccine (F.)

The University of Notre Dame in Indiana has joined an increasing number of universities in announcing they will require students and faculty to receive a coronavirus vaccine before stepping on campus this fall. On Wednesday, Notre Dame said all students will be required to be fully vaccinated as a condition of enrolling at the university next year, and will open an on-campus vaccination site Thursday. Boston’s Northeastern University said Tuesday students attending in-person classes on campus in the fall will be required to be fully vaccinated by the first day of the term. On Friday, New York’s Cornell University announced it “intends to require” immunization for all students attending in-person classes in the fall, and asked the university community to register their vaccination status so the administration can determine immunization rates to base reopening plans on.

Fort Lewis College in Colorado said Friday all students enrolled next semester will be required to be vaccinated against coronavirus. Florida’s Nova Southeastern University will require all students, faculty and staff to be fully vaccinated by August 1 in order to resume in-person classes on campus next school year, the university announced Friday. Texas’ St. Edward’s University said March 29 it would require students and faculty over the age of 16 to receive a vaccine before September. Last month, Rutgers University in New Jersey was the first large U.S. college to announce it would require all on-campus students to be fully vaccinated against coronavirus before fall semester classes begin. Oakland University in Detroit is mandating vaccines for students who live on campus, school officials said Monday, but not for the wider university community.

More universities may opt to require vaccines for students, but there could be pushback from critics. The idea of “vaccine passports” that document the holder has been vaccinated have proved controversial with Republicans who say they are an invasion of privacy. On Tuesday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed an executive order to ban vaccine passports from being used in the state by government entities or organizations that receive public funds. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis issued a similar order Friday to ban them in his state, even by private businesses. It’s still unclear how these executive orders will affect universities wishing to mandate vaccines.

Read more …

Long article that heaps all “sceptics” on one big pile, so they all get tainted by the most extreme amongst them. And then describes some reasonable people who get lured into Telegram groups and deceived. How to build a narrative.

Among the Covid Sceptics (G.)

When the pandemic hit in March 2020, Anna, a young woman from Bradford, was waiting for surgery for endometriosis. The surgery was cancelled, leaving her in excruciating pain. She was forced to close her business, a small tattoo studio that she had opened two years earlier, at the age of 24. She could no longer pay for the weekly counselling that had been helping her deal with her troubled childhood. Her partner lost his job. Anna was convinced that if she caught Covid, she would die. “I was in a terrified bubble, having the news on constantly, crying, worrying, panicking,” she told me. For weeks, she waited anxiously for news about support for shuttered businesses. The cash grant, when it finally came, fell far short. Other business expenses – insurance, bills – went on her credit card. She considered suicide.

Feeling abandoned by the government and frustrated by the daily press briefings, Anna and her partner researched the virus online. On Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, they came across theories about the origins of coronavirus that the mainstream media weren’t talking about – that it was engineered in a lab in China, say, or that it had been artificially spliced with HIV. Some of it seemed implausible to Anna, but it was enough to convince her that the media wasn’t telling the full story. “Loads of people were saying ‘even if you die from a heart attack, they’ll put it down as a Covid death’. I was looking into that, and how many people who died had pre-existing health conditions,” she said. “It was to make me feel better, so I wouldn’t be as scared.”

She read dense, seemingly scientific material which claimed that PCR testing – the throat and nasal swabs that are considered the gold standard of Covid tests – leads to enormous numbers of false positives. She read that the World Health Organization had said that Britain is testing at too high a sensitivity. She read about the cost of lockdowns, and Sweden’s more permissive approach. She read about the death rate; 1% didn’t sound that high at all. Looked at another way, 99% survived. By the end of the first lockdown, Anna was no longer afraid. She was angry. “I’d been sat in my house for four months, in absolute agony, no mental health support, no financial support, and it did an absolute number on me,” she said.

Read more …

Gerald Celente is a big fan of TAE. Whenever he doesn’t get his daily Debt Rattle, he protests. The video is worth it. Very much. Sounds doesn’t quite seem to sync, but hey…

Anti-Vax & Anti-Tax – 2 Huge Trends of 2021 –Gerald Celente (USAW)

Gerald Celente, a renowned trends researcher and publisher of “The Trends Journal,” is back to talk about two of the biggest trends taking shape for 2021. One revolves around Covid-19 (CV-19) and the experimental so-called vaccine, otherwise known as the “jab.” The other is a rebounding economy destined to crash. First, the CV-19 jab, as Celente explains, “There are going to be new political movements: anti-tax, anti-vax, anti-immigration and anti-establishment. We are going to see a big anti-vax movement. To make the point on how they are going to be selling this . . . They are selling it now that there is going to be a new strain of CV-19, and you better prepare for it. It’s going to happen every year, and you are going to have to get vaccinated. So, we are going to start seeing a big anti-vax movement.”

The economy in blue states is performing much worse that in Red states, and that is fueling big government to raise big taxes. Celente says, “The streets out here in New York are dead. . . . They are dead. Now, they are raising the taxes. The first thing they did was tolls. The next thing they are going to do is a gas tax, soda tax, sales tax, property tax and school tax. Business is dead. New York City is dead. Brooklyn is dead. Park Slope is a slope alright, a downhill slope. The office occupancy rate in New York City is still at 14%. All the businesses that depend on commuters are gone, and this isn’t coming back.” All the economic news is not bad. Celente is forecasting, “This is the other important thing. There is going to be an economic rebound. It’s going to happen because all of the cheap money they are pumping into the system. We are going to start seeing inflation really skyrocket. They are going to have to raise interest rates.

We had a cover on The Trends Journal, and it showed two big needles. One injection is the vaccine, the other is the money junkies injecting money into the system. They are drug dealers and money junkies. The money junkies need cheap money from the Federal Reserve to keep gambling. They are going to have to raise interest rates. When the equity markets crash, people will be forced to wake up to know how bad it is. . . . It’s artificially propped up, and when the markets crash, the reality will be felt. The reality is already being felt by the hundreds of millions of people around the world whose lives and livelihoods have been destroyed. When the markets crash, we are going to be living in hell on earth. . . . We are heading into the Greatest Depression, and you better prepare now. The other biggest trend is there is going to be a ‘vax war.’ There is no question about it.”

Read more …

Dystopia.

Scenes From 2030 (TE Creus)

“Hi, dude!” “Oh. Hi. How are you?” “I’m good. How do you like my shoes?” “Nice. Are those…” “Yeah. The original Nike Lil Nas X Satan’s Shoes, version 2030.” “Wow. But don’t those cost a fortune? How can you afford them, with just the Universal Basic Income?” “Well, duh. I didn’t buy them, dude. I’m just renting them from Amazon Prime, of course. All of my clothes are rented, including the original Calvin Klein underwear.” “Eew… Well, they did say that ‘you’ll own nothing, and you’ll be happy’…” “What are you talking about?” “Nothing, just remembering an old joke here. So, what’s new? What are your plans for next week?” “Not sure. Maybe I’ll go to the City Hall Yearly Masked Ball. You want to come? The masks are all N95 compliant, so it’s safe.”

“No, thanks. I thought you were travelling to Italy for the holidays?” “Nah, I can’t board a plane this month. I didn’t get my Moderna monthly booster shots. I wanted to, but the lines were so big, the next appointment available for me is only next month.” “This Covid-29 is really pesky, isn’t it?” “You bet. But I’m sure the vaccine is working. Just give it time. It takes a few years to achieve full immunization, but of course, with the new variants and viruses that appear every month, it’s always a game of catching up. We got to be patient. So, yeah, no travel this month for me.” “Well, you know, you could always travel around your own room.” “What?” “Oh. I just got reminded of an old 18th century novel. ‘Voyage around my room,’ by Xavier de Maistre.”

“What it’s about?” “It’s about a guy who, well, travels around his room.” “18th century? Man, that’s like, old. When was that exactly? I guess that’s when the first lockdowns happened, right? In the first Covid era?” “Yeah, sort of… Anyway, forget it, you just reminded me of that book. But I guess reading is not really your thing.” “Nah. Is there a YouTube version? You are funny, you’re one of those guys who still read, right? You’re really old-fashioned. I bet you don’t even have a microchip in your brain, L.O.L.” “Thankfully not…” “…” “What’s wrong?” “Don’t get close to me.” “What? Why? Who are you calling?” “Who am I calling? Who am I calling? The police, dude. Not having a brain chip is a felony, and it’s my duty as a citizen to report you, sorry. I know you’re a friend and neighbour and all, but, that’s just sick, dude. That’s really fucked-up.”

Read more …

Cancel the doctors.

YouTube Removes Recent DeSantis Public Health Roundtable (JTN)

March public health roundtable event hosted by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that featured reputable doctors including former White House coronavirus advisor Dr. Scott Atlas and the authors of The Great Barrington Declaration has been removed from YouTube for “violating YouTube’s Community Guidelines,” according to Reclaim the Net. The video garnered over 500,000 views while it was published and covered a group of panelists advising against lockdowns, contact tracing and mask mandates. The doctors – including Drs. Sunetra Gupta, Jay Bhattacharya, and Martin Kulldorff – also called the measures harmful and said that schools should reopen for in-person learning.


“We also talk about removing information that is problematic,” YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki told CNN last spring. “We’ve had to update our policy numerous times associated with COVID-19.” While the video was taken down from one channel, the video remains available on NBC 6 South Florida’s page. YouTube’s parent-company, Google, along with Facebook and Twitter have [been] adding misinformation warnings and removed posts that violate company guidelines including some related to coronavirus health-safety measures.

Read more …

“Inflation is a function of money supply but equally critical, the demand for money (velocity).”

Inflation: Making the Complex, Simple – Part 1 (RIA)

We could devote pages to the multitude of factors affecting the supply, demand, and pricing of a Big Mac. The exercise would explain why the Big Mac price rises or falls versus Burger King Whoppers and every other good and service available. Such analysis is critical to McDonalds, but often overemphasized from a macroeconomic perspective. Economists cite increasing oil prices as a driver for inflation and stronger retail sales from time to time. They assume consumers will still buy everything they were consuming, yet pay an extra $20 at the pump each week. In reality, consumers often substitute goods and services based on their budgets and needs. Economists often fail to consider the extra $20 spent at the gas pump is $20 not spent elsewhere.


The price of oil may rise, but the price of oranges may fall as consumers spend less on oranges to compensate. What matters most from a macroeconomic perspective is the aggregate price change for oil, oranges, Big Macs, and every other good and service. To correctly anticipate inflation, we must look beyond the supply and demand for goods and services. The truth lies in the supply and the demand for money. Unfortunately, the supply of money gets the headlines, while its demand is an afterthought. The chart below shows the forthcoming evidence of inflation used by most inflationists.

The following graph captures monetary velocity for an appropriate view of inflation.

Inflation is a function of money supply but equally critical, the demand for money (velocity).

Read more …

“The tentacles of Wokery have reached into every last compartment of American life now, more effectively even than the Covid-19 corona virus.”

Peak Woke (Jim Kunstler)

What were the execs of these mighty companies thinking — these knights of the boardroom, these capitalist geniuses, these moral nonpareils — when they cancelled Atlanta’s turn to host the midsummer All-star Game to “protest” Georgia’s passage of a law that requires voter ID? Surely that they were striking a righteous blow against systemic racism. And then, the rest of the world realized — almost immediately — that Major League Baseball requires online ticket buyers to show ID when they pick up their tickets at any stadium… and that Delta Airlines requires passengers to show ID (duh) before being allowed to fly in one of their airplanes… and that various other corporations snookered into this latest hustle such as Nike, Coca-Cola, and Calvin Klein support forced labor in the Asian nations that manufacture their products.

They’re Woke, you see. The tentacles of Wokery have reached into every last compartment of American life now, more effectively even than the Covid-19 corona virus. Wokeness emerged on the scene in 2014 when the feckless teenager Michael Brown was shot to death by police officer Darren Wilson upon arrest in Ferguson, Missouri, an event that kicked off the Black Lives Matter movement. The moral panic BLM ignited proved to be a spectacularly effective device for repelling the truth of the situation, and many more like it, which was that Michael Brown resisted arrest, fought with, and menaced officer Wilson before getting shot.

The Woke moral panic that proceeded from this effectively suppressed two truths about police relations with Black America: 1) that Blacks committed crimes against life and property at a disproportionately high rate to their percentage in the US population, and 2) that the number of unarmed black people killed by police was statistically minuscule, and in most cases involved people resisting arrest or fighting with police. As the 2016 election approached, the Democratic Party realized it was in its interest to cultivate the Woke moral panic so as to marshal the Black voting bloc so crucial to victory at the polls.

Read more …

Victoria Nuland et al.

Biden Admin Plots Revenge On Russia For Alleged Hacking, Meddling (ZH)

President Joe Biden – whose son Hunter received $3.5 million by the wife of the late Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov for reasons unknown – is preparing to retaliate for various Russian misdeeds, including the SolarWinds hack and election interference, according to Bloomberg. Retaliatory options may include sanctions on people close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, agencies linked to alleged election meddling, and the expulsion of Russian intelligence officers in the US who are currently under diplomatic cover, according to anonymous officials – one of whom said that the US response ‘would likely comprise several elements.’

“The actions will be the outcome of the review President Joe Biden ordered on his first full day in office into four areas: Interference in the U.S. election, reports of Russian bounties on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, the SolarWinds attack and the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny. The administration announced sanctions against Russian officials over Navalny last month but had so far held off on action in the other three areas.” -Bloomberg. Last month, Biden nodded in agreement when asked if he thought Putin was a “killer,” to which Putin said ‘takes one to know one.’ Putin then challenged Biden to a live, televised debate to discuss geopolitical friction, which the US President promptly declined.

According to the report, beyond sanctioning individuals, the Biden administration could expel diplomats or other measures designed to establish ‘effective deterrence against cyber attacks’ such as the SolarWinds exploit which affected several government agencies and private corporations.

Read more …

VIPS. McGovern, Kiriakou, Binney, Ritter etc.

Veteran Intelligence Officials Urge Biden To Avoid War In Ukraine (ZH)

1. It must be made clear to Ukrainian President Zelensky that there will be no military assistance from either the US or NATO if he does not restrain Ukrainian hawks itching to give Russia a bloody nose — hawks who may well expect the West to come to Ukraine’s aid in any conflict with Russia. (There must be no repeat of the fiasco of August 2008, when the Republic of Georgia initiated offensive military operations against South Ossetia in the mistaken belief that the US would come to its assistance if Russia responded militarily.)

2. We recommend that you quickly get back in touch with Zelensky and insist that Kiev halt its current military buildup in eastern Ukraine. Russian forces have been lining up at the border ready to react if Zelensky’s loose talk of war becomes more than bravado. Washington should also put on hold all military training activity involving US and NATO troops in the region. This would lessen the chance that Ukraine would misinterpret these training missions as a de facto sign of support for Ukrainian military operations to regain control of either the Donbas or Crimea.

3. It is equally imperative that the U.S. engage in high-level diplomatic talks with Russia to reduce tensions in the region and de-escalate the current rush toward military conflict. Untangling the complex web of issues that currently burden U.S.-Russia relations is a formidable task that will not be accomplished overnight. This would be an opportune time to work toward a joint goal of preventing armed hostilities in Ukraine and wider war.

There is opportunity as well as risk in the current friction over Ukraine. This crisis offers your administration the opportunity to elevate the moral authority of the United States in the eyes of the international community. Leading with diplomacy will greatly enhance the stature of America in the world.

For the Steering Group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

Read more …

“..without clear sign US ready for bilateral relations..”

Russia Unlikely To Send Recalled Ambassador Back To Washington (RT)

Russia’s Foreign Ministry has revealed it has no plans to restore full diplomatic representation in Washington until it sees evidence that the US is interested in building constructive relations between the two countries. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov was asked by RIA Novosti on Wednesday whether Ambassador Anatoly Antonov would return to America in the near future, having been recalled in March amid a growing diplomatic row. “This is not a question for the next few days,” he said. “The timings will be determined based on what steps Washington plans to take on the bilateral track,” he continued. “We expect that they are still able to demonstrate a desire to at least relatively stabilize our relationship and that they will do something visible and noticeable in this regard.”


Antonov flew to Moscow for a series of crunch talks with senior officials in the days following US President Joe Biden’s interview with the ABC news network, in which he was asked whether he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin is a “killer,” and replied, “Mmm hmm, I do.” The American leader also said he had warned the Russian president that the US would potentially take action if it found evidence of Moscow’s interference in the US election. “He will pay a price,” Biden added. His comments came as a joint report by Washington’s spy agencies, including the CIA and the Department of Homeland Security, was declassified and made available to the public. It declared that Russia attempted to influence the 2020 US election with the aim of “denigrating President Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic Party, supporting former President Trump, undermining public confidence in the electoral process, and exacerbating sociopolitical divisions in the US.”

Read more …

“This will be a message for a new age..” “the most important political and public event.”

Putin Poised To Set Out Vision For Future In Dramatic Speech (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin is reportedly preparing to give a major address in which he will fire the starting pistol on a “new era” and set out a different vision for the future of his country as the Covid-19 pandemic wanes. The chairwoman of the Russian Senate, Valentina Matvienko, told reporters on Tuesday that the speech would set out answers to a number of challenges facing the world. “This will be a message for a new age,” she said. “But at the same time, as always, current issues will be addressed, focuses will be defined and direct instructions will be given.” Matvienko added that “in the current difficult environment facing the world, which comes with many obstacles for countries including Russia,” the address would become “the most important political and public event.”

Putin is due to speak to the national parliament, encompassing both the Senate and its lower house, the State Duma, on April 21. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov revealed on Monday that the annual message would be delivered in person, amid a relaxing of social distancing rules governing workplaces across the country. “The rest of the details are being worked out,” he added. At a meeting of the World Economic Forum in January, Putin warned that the coronavirus pandemic was driving countries to borrow beyond their means and driving up inequality. Increasing the debt burden, he said, was an outdated way of stimulating growth. “If 20 or 30 years ago the problem could be solved by means of stimulating macro-economic policy, today these mechanisms have reached their limits,” the president said.

“Over the past 30 years, real incomes of people living in most of the developed countries have stagnated while the cost of education and health services has increased. Millions of people, even in rich countries, no longer see the prospect of boosting their incomes,” Putin added.

Read more …

Big game hunters.

Humans Were Apex Predators For Two Million Years (Phys.org)

Only the extinction of larger animals (megafauna) in various parts of the world, and the decline of animal food sources toward the end of the stone age, led humans to gradually increase the vegetable element in their nutrition, until finally they had no choice but to domesticate both plants and animals—and became farmers. “So far, attempts to reconstruct the diet of stone-age humans were mostly based on comparisons to 20th century hunter-gatherer societies,” explains Dr. Ben-Dor. “This comparison is futile, however, because two million years ago hunter-gatherer societies could hunt and consume elephants and other large animals—while today’s hunter gatherers do not have access to such bounty. The entire ecosystem has changed, and conditions cannot be compared.

We decided to use other methods to reconstruct the diet of stone-age humans: to examine the memory preserved in our own bodies, our metabolism, genetics and physical build. Human behavior changes rapidly, but evolution is slow. The body remembers.” In a process unprecedented in its extent, Dr. Ben-Dor and his colleagues collected about 25 lines of evidence from about 400 scientific papers from different scientific disciplines, dealing with the focal question: Were stone-age humans specialized carnivores or were they generalist omnivores? Most evidence was found in research on current biology, namely genetics, metabolism, physiology and morphology. “One prominent example is the acidity of the human stomach,” says Dr. Ben-Dor. “The acidity in our stomach is high when compared to omnivores and even to other predators. Producing and maintaining strong acidity require large amounts of energy, and its existence is evidence for consuming animal products.

Strong acidity provides protection from harmful bacteria found in meat, and prehistoric humans, hunting large animals whose meat sufficed for days or even weeks, often consumed old meat containing large quantities of bacteria, and thus needed to maintain a high level of acidity. Another indication of being predators is the structure of the fat cells in our bodies. In the bodies of omnivores, fat is stored in a relatively small number of large fat cells, while in predators, including humans, it’s the other way around: we have a much larger number of smaller fat cells. Significant evidence for the evolution of humans as predators has also been found in our genome. For example, geneticists have concluded that “areas of the human genome were closed off to enable a fat-rich diet, while in chimpanzees, areas of the genome were opened to enable a sugar-rich diet.”

Read more …

Whitney Webb: “Anyone who is down to let Silicon Valley “hack” life processes and nature in general can fuck right off.”

Can Blood from Young People Slow Aging? (NW)

The Spanish firm Grifols helped set off a kerfuffle last year when it, along with other firms, offered nearly double the going price for blood donations for a COVID-19 treatment trial. Brigham Young University in Idaho had to threaten some enterprising students with suspension to keep them from intentionally trying to contract COVID-19. The trial failed, however, and now the Barcelona-based firm is hoping to extract something far more valuable from the plasma of young volunteers: a set of microscopic molecules that could reverse the process of aging itself. Earlier this year, Grifols closed on a $146 million-deal to buy Alkahest, a company founded by Stanford University neuroscientist Tony Wyss-Coray, who, along with Saul Villeda, revealed in scientific papers published in 2011 and 2014 that the blood from young mice had seemingly miraculous restorative effects on the brains of elderly mice.

The discovery adds to a hot area of inquiry called geroscience that focuses on identifying beneficial elements of blood that dissipate as we age and others that accumulate and cause damage. In the last six years, Alkahest has identified more than 8,000 proteins in the blood that show potential promise as therapies. Its efforts and those of Grifols have resulted in at least six phase 2 trials completed or underway to treat a wide range of age-related diseases, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Alkahest and a growing number of other geroscience health startups signal a change in thinking about some of the most intractable diseases facing humankind. Rather than focusing solely on the etiology of individual diseases like heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s and arthritis—or, for that matter, COVID-19—geroscientists are trying to understand how these diseases relate to the single largest risk factor of all: human aging.

Their goal is to hack the process of aging itself and, in the process, delay or stave off the onset of many of the diseases most associated with growing old. The idea that aging and illness go hand and hand is, of course, nothing new. What’s new is the newfound confidence of scientists that “aging” can be measured, reverse-engineered and controlled. Until recently, “people working on diseases did not think that aging was modifiable,” says Felipe Sierra, who recently retired as director of the Division of Aging Biology, part of the National Institutes of Health. “That is actually what many medical books say: The main risk factor for cardiovascular disease is aging, but we cannot change aging so let’s talk about cholesterol and obesity. For Alzheimer’s, aging is the main risk factor—but let’s talk about the buildup in the brain of beta-amyloid proteins. Now that is beginning to change.”

Read more …

 

We try to run the Automatic Earth on donations. Since ad revenue has collapsed, you are now not just a reader, but an integral part of the process that builds this site. Thank you for your support.

 


 

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in virustime. Click at the top of the sidebars to donate with Paypal and Patreon.

 

Home Forums Debt Rattle April 8 2021

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 73 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #72700

    James McNeill Whistler Nocturne in Blue and Silver, The Lagoon, Venice 1880   • Covid Passports Could Be Required For Clothes Shopping (Ind.) • N
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle April 8 2021]

    #72701
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    James McNeill Whistler Nocturne in Blue and Silver, The Lagoon, Venice 1880

    Lovely, easy, mellow…

    #72702
    Germ
    Participant

    Berlin already requires a neg. Covid test to go clothes shopping.

    https://allaboutberlin.com/guides/coronavirus

    Soon we all will.
    These decisions are not being made by sovereign nations. Sovereigns are implementing rules that are being dictated to them.

    #72703
    Mister Roboto
    Participant

    The Guardian article was an interesting read, and I find myself in a mindset similar to Ana. I think Covid is very real and very serious, I just don’t think the lockdown strategy is a long-term formula for success in dealing with it. I’m just not very vocal about that because it’s just too easy to end up getting lumped in with all these extremist weirdos. And the fact that the medical establishment is apparently refusing to even consider treating Covid-afflictees with Ivermectin, and the press actively propagandizes against doing so, really has to make you wonder what else might be going on.

    #72704

    The inconsistency in Berlin is lovely.

    To go shopping or to get a haircut, you must have a negative test from the same day. Rapid antigen tests are allowed. Self-tests are not allowed1, unless you do them at the store while an employee is watching1. You don’t need a test to go to supermarkets, pharmacies and drug stores.

    Because we all know that the risk is so much higher in clothing stores than in a crowded supermarket.

    I must admit I didn’t quite foresee that Merkel the scientist would screw this up as badly as she has.

    #72705
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    I must admit I didn’t quite foresee that Merkel the scientists would screw this up as badly as she has.

    In WWII there was a saying; SNAFU…situation normal, all fouled up…

    Little changes but the language and the adjectives… 😉

    #72707

    https://today.rtl.lu/news/world/a/1702327.html

    The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Thursday ruled that obligatory vaccinations can be seen as necessary in democratic societies, in a landmark judgement after a complaint brought by Czech families over compulsory jabs for children.

    “The… measures could be regarded as being ‘necessary in a democratic society'” the court said in its judgement, saying that the Czech health policy was consistent with the “best interests” of children.

    “The objective has to be that every child is protected against serious diseases, through vaccination or by virtue of herd immunity,” it added.

    As a result, the court ruled there had been no violation of Article 8 on the right to respect for private life of the European Convention on Human Rights.

    This is the first time that the ECHR has delivered a judgement about compulsory vaccination against childhood diseases. Experts say it could have implications for any policy of compulsory vaccinations against Covid-19 in the pandemic.

    This judgement “reinforces the possibility of a compulsory vaccination under conditions of the current Covid-19 epidemic,” Nicolas Hervieu, a legal expert specialising in the ECHR, told AFP.

    #72708
    a kullervo
    Participant

    • Can Blood from Young People Slow Aging? (NW)

    Science & modern-day vampires: a real treat for conspiracy theory aficionados, just another fix of cheap thrills to keep the proles numb and dumb.

    #72709
    Mister Roboto
    Participant

    @a kullervo: I was going to say “Shades of Countess Elizabeth Bathory” in response to that, but the Wikipedia page about her says that accounts of her vampiric activities such as bathing in the blood of young women to preserve her youth, are most likely apocryphal.

    #72710

    BBC explains that the ECHR decision on mandatory vaccination has nothing to do with COVID, but with measles, mumps etc, much earlier cases. Still contested territory, but less so because those are not untested and unproven vaccines. Still, a curious detail about a Czech girl in 2006 who was sent away from school because she was the only pupil without a measles vaccination, and therefore considered a threat to the others. But they were all vaccinated?!

    #72711
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “Covid Passports Could Be Required for Clothes Shopping (Ind.)”

    This is what get me with Noirette yesterday. Hey, you believe in Covid, in masks, fine, I can understand that. But as I’ve said since last January, what they have is a FAKE lockdown, a pretend puppet-show theatre with a lot of Punches, run by Judy. Non N95 masks, wide open at the nose, made of random t-shirt material, unwashed for 140 days. Put on and rubbed early and often with unwashed hands that then touch doorknobs, bedknobs and broomsticks. Where Science says disease is 6 feet apart in America, but the Euro variant keeps its tape measure set at 3 feet. So all random non-quaranteam is packed into one room for an hour at a pop, with the TV in the waiting roon on demonstrating with laser light that aerosols linger through masks and in air for hours.

    Considered perfectly normal, because it’s all let’s-pretend, all peer-pressure, so you’re supporting the science by denying the science while you are literally watching the science on TV. And denying it. As its most basic implications go into your head.

    So it’s not even the fake, wrong science that bugs me. If that’s the fake research, scammed on TV for profit I could understand it. It’s knowing, saying, mouthing that masks and washing, then nobody-doin’-nuttin’, except, you know, shouting at me 10” away and calling maskless police to arrest me in a CV-unsafe court and cell.

    It’s the sheer insanity, the anti-logic, the pointed expression of letting you know YOU DON’T BELIEVE A WORD, in your own actions and behavior, it’s just a stick, a nice excuse to club someone and be able to claim you beat them because you love them.

    The Shops are a great example, but just another. WalMart is clearly the best, where instead of 5 people in Pa’s Hardware, we have 500 people rubbing noses on shopping cart handles. Pa’s Hardware doesn’t own a Senator, WalMart does. That’s “Science”. Or technically it’s “Economics”.

    Everyone just going about being as illogical as is humanly possible to be, that is indeed hell to me, only added by the extension of using their blinding, hypocritical illogic to be as oppressive as possible to be.

    This is what from yesterday, we chatter on about the “Constitution” and “human rights” and other such useless myths, instead of being practical and copping to it. Because those ideas are real and have effects on life. I believe in these freedoms, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, the belief that I own my body and have the right to protect it. These things aren’t stupid, they matter. They cause behavior, of ourselves and others to change and encourage such freedoms to be left alone so that at some extreme we’re rapidly approaching, you DON’T need to use raw violence to be heard and respected and left alone.

    I DID fight the Iraq war back when, and I AM still after Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and their overlords. It was NOT popular then and had no more traction in mass insanity than the present Liberal insanity has. Does that make me special, that I opposed their violence and oppression then, and I oppose this clear, far more deadly violence and oppression now? Apparently it does. Apparently it makes me a hell of a minority. But you want me not to do it, lie back and think of England? What happens if no one puts pressure on endless, deadly lies in a culture, as we generally see now? Is that better or worse than a culture that DOES attack, savage, test, discuss, and debunk murderous, self-serving falsehoods?

    It sucks to have principles. It’s super inconvenient. But there was a guy who had a quote about something-something blah-blah “good men do nothing.” Like his other quote about “judged by the content of their character” we do the OPPOSITE, and like him, I also call out this behavior and am attacked for it. Likely before time is through I will indeed be killed for such words, by the loving, tolerant people, so I can only begin my attempt to defend my life at this early hour, not belatedly, at the end, having done nothing until, as another man said, “They came for me.” So I’m a pain in the -ss I hear, ’cause I won’t just shut up and die already, with all my peers.

    “Among the Covid Sceptics (G.)”

    These are nutter “conspiracy theorists” like the VP of Pfizer – Ha! What does he know?? – who say you shouldn’t take a vaccine just because it’s been banned in twelve nations! Can you believe the ignorance? Just because it KILLS you doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take it, that it’s not safe and certifiably never tested ever. What a bunch of loons. Clearly desiring research and evidence is just plain AntiScience. Collecting data of side effects is AntiScience. Discussing it among doctors and researchers is AntiScience. The only Science is no research, no evidence, but “Do whatever you’re told” by anyone who opens their mouth, ever.

    …Unless they’re a doctor of VP of Pfizer. Then ignore them and obey CNN.

    Cancel the doctors. “YouTube Removes Recent DeSantis Public Health Roundtable (JTN)”

    In case you thought I was kidding or hyperbolic. Media is openly and pointedly erasing Congressional testimony of certified medical experts. Daily. How could one be hyperbolic or even have the need to be in this environment?

    Speaking of implausible, hyperbolic, media erasing, they shut down the Suez again. I’m sure it means nothing and has no pattern. Trust CNN, or was it BabylonBee: “America’s most trustworthy news source”? No one can tell the difference anymore.

    “Biden Admin Plots Revenge On Russia For Alleged Hacking, Meddling (ZH)”

    Man, won’t this be great when Russia takes the Ukraine back to Dnepr, and shows NATO as hollow, useless has-been as the Suez showed Britain in 1950? I’ll throw a party. Biden is going to restore the status quo and return Ukraine to its rightful owner. Thanks!

    “Russia’s Foreign Ministry has revealed it has no plans to restore full diplomatic representation in Washington until it sees” they are not agreement-capable. Which, being Anglos, is never. Ask your local Indian how agreement-capable they are.

    Over the past 30 years, real incomes of people living in most of the developed countries have stagnated”

    Diplomatic and generous as always. Our incomes have plummeted, with our hope and all human rights. Because they all go together. Always. We now enjoy the “misery spread widely” socialism and authoritarianism, nepotism, always bring. Not to fear: you can always sell your daughter to St. James and score a few social-credit points.

    “Humans Were Apex Predators for Two Million Years (Phys.org)”

    This is complete bulls—t, and shows this man has never been outside a parking lot. Spend a week in Alaska and tell me all about how “apex” you feel.

    For the intellectuals, who will never-ever do that, nor never-ever ask any “questions” from 1st nations for a “statement”, I’ll say this. So his theory is that we erased all the sabertooth tigers, but were like, “oh, these pumas that still attack and kill joggers in Denver today are but wee pussycats, and we’ll keep all them alive.” We erased all the mastodons, but said, “hey, buffalo only kill us as fast as looking, and we didn’t dare get within 30 yards of them until horses returned, but we’ll keep them around as they’re safe as houses.”

    Aaaaaand because they never-ever asked anybody or looked at anything, they said, “We’re totally committed to the death of the sabretooth tiger, the deadly mastodon, and the fatal great bear, but we REFUSE to eat free salmon, mussels, rabbits, and deer. Nope! Only big, dangerous animals for me! We don’t need no safe, small animals: we’ll save those for our descendants.”

    Yeah, I hear it all the time. But since we’re violently anti-logic and believe anything experts tell us only when it defies all common sense and present experience, it’s always believed without question.
    They ate mostly meat. Nothing else has calories. Go ahead and drop your canoe on Afognak Island and tell me what you think you’re going to eat today. Like McCandless you’ll be dead in 30 days of very slow starvation if you don’t eat meat almost entirely. But that doesn’t mean you’re going after polar bear with a sharpened stick. You’re going for ANYTHING not Kodiak or polar bear. Anything. Fish, shellfish, porcupines, anything. That’s Anti-Apex.

    Of course you COULD ask people who do this all day, but that would mean getting out of your office and asking someone. And then how would you get multi-million dollar grants promoting fake AGW based on fake extinction theories? But I’ll be happy to chuck them out of an airplane with a stone spear and loincloth and help.

    “Can Blood from Young People Slow Aging? (NW)”

    Weird, Newsweek: I was told this was an unhinged conspiracy theory, like the Time article about how a small cabal conspired to elect the “right” man. But here we are:

    Covid is the only thing where you can quote the CDC research, from the CDC website, and still be considered a Conspiracy Theorist.”

    Or quote Newsweek and Time articles word-for-word and people claim it’s all false. Truth a la carte. Truth is whatever I say it is, a minute ago. A minute later, it changes.

    On that note, the New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/swedens-pandemic-experiment “Sweden’s Pandemic Experiment”

    Synopsis: “I have feelings about Covid, do you have feelings?” “Yes I have feelings but they’re Swedish feelings.” “Some things happened, did things happen?” “Yes some things happened here too.” The End.

    Logic!

    “If you don’t read the news, you’ll be uninformed. But if you DO read the news, you’ll be misinformed.” –Mark Twain, 150 years ago.

    #72713
    zerosum
    Participant

    “vaccine passports”

    “Herd immunity”
    https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#datatracker-home

    30,662,171 recovered

    People Vaccinated
    At Least One Dose Fully Vaccinated
    Total 109,995,734 64,422,618
    % of Total Population 33.1% 19.4%

    Population ≥ 65 Years of Age 41,793,053 31,413,778
    % of Population ≥ 65 Years of Age 76.4% 57.4%

    #72714
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    Israel’s significant excess mortality numbers for the past few weeks have somehow been revised downward to “no excess”. This seems strange, since revisions usually go upward, as additional deaths for a given week are registered.

    Before the changes:

    After the changes:

    Update, April 8: In the latest Euromomo update, Israeli excess mortality in weeks 6 to 11 disappeared. Euromomo now shows a negative excess mortality (65+) since week 11.

    Israel: Why Is All-Cause Mortality Increasing?

    #72718
    Mr. House
    Participant

    https://nypost.com/2021/04/07/covid-vaccine-site-closes-early-after-adverse-reactions-to-jj-shot/

    Step right up folks, i’ve got some snakeoil to sell ya!

    “Officials did not disclose the types of reactions suffered by less than 1 percent of the more than 1,700 people given shots at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City”

    Phew it was only less then 1 percent! We must do everything we can like shutting down your lives and freedoms if it saves only one life!

    If you’ve watched this movie you’ll know what this is, if not i highly suggest you watch this movie. This is how the 1% and corporations view you, heck its how my landlord views me! (in defense of landlords i’ve had many and she takes the cake)

    #72719
    Mr. House
    Participant

    Wait doesn’t covid also only kill less then 1% of those who get it? Hmmm which is worse, We’ll prob have a good idea in a years time!

    #72720
    Mr. House
    Participant

    Question for everyone: Did anyone hear anything about a Navy sailor getting shot to death at Ft. Detrick in maryland?

    #72722
    zerosum
    Participant

    https://distribution-a617274656661637473.pbo-dpb.ca/71f12c2a896208681dcd59ff69f19e1a6c024d00a60c2e2c195f56293f8fff1c
    DISTRIBUTIONAL AND FISCAL
    ANALYSIS OF A NATIONAL
    GUARANTEED BASIC INCOME
    (The report used parameters set for Ontario’s 2017 basic income pilot project, pegging a UBI at $16,989 for a single person and $24,027 for a couple, with the amount decreasing by $0.50 for every dollar earned through employment. It estimated the program would cost $87 billion in 2022, rising to $93 billion in 2025.
    The analysis also assumed that a swath of government programs sending out targeted support would be discontinued under a UBI system.)

    #72724
    sumac.carol
    Participant

    I want to go back to yesterday’s comments. A challenge, which I think should not be ignored, is when the non mainstream folks do not agree. This was the case yesterday. The Pfizer former VP clearly rejected the central point in Bosche’s explanation for the threat represented by covid variants. Bosche says they get more virulent and the Pfizer says they get weaker therefore less threatening. This is a major discrepancy. Who are you going to believe? Also Dr. D I disagree that the Pfizer guy is an expert in assigning corporate motives. At the very least he did a bad job of explaining his rationale.

    #72725
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    Regarding wokery and the tentacles thereof: this too shall pass. Pretty soon, in fact. Like everything else, the stability of the woke narrative is tenuous and doomed to extinction sooner than later. Just as the Fed has to “print” a trillion or so a month to stay even with itself, so does the media distraction/direction machinery have to put pout ever more narratives ever faster to keep the people beguiled. Add to this that cancel culture fades as fast as the canceled becomes, um, canceled. On to the next thing. It grows old and also uncomfortably close to oneself’s personal priorities” “Cance; SNLive! How DARE they!”

    Canceled

    #72726
    Maxwell Quest
    Participant

    “Still, a curious detail about a Czech girl in 2006 who was sent away from school because she was the only pupil without a measles vaccination, and therefore considered a threat to the others. But they were all vaccinated?!”

    If one thinks logically then this makes no sense, but if one thinks like an authoritarian it makes perfect sense. Authoritarians are rules-based, one-size-fits-all thinkers. There can be no exceptions to the rule. Good Lord! If we allow exceptions then what comes next? Anarchy! Disorder! Chaos! And the loss of control, which must be maintained at all costs if society (and my position of power) is to be safe and secure. “I will have ORDER!!”, said Deloris Umbridge.

    #72727
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    Berlin has always been a center for social engineering since Frederick the Something or Other.

    #72728

    Wait doesn’t covid also only kill less then 1% of those who get it?

    Oh, that’s right, I asked yesterday if anyone knew where the 0.15% Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) was recently published, but I found it, thank you very much ;-). It came from John P.A. Ioannidis. Mind you, he also mentions ~1.5‐2.0 billion infections by February 2021, which is a lot, but a 0.15% IFR is not.

    The problem would be the required hospitalizations, not deaths. And many if not most of the former could have been prevented with vit. D, ivermectin, etc. Which puts into a much clearer perspective where the real issues are.

    And no, vaccines are not going to solve that. At 1.5 billion infections and maybe 20% of that in vaccinations, you’re just inviting the virus to mutate beyond the boundaries of the vaccines. On Ioannidis’ work:

    https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/eci.13554

    https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2021.625778/full

    #72729
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    @ Raul

    “Still, a curious detail about a Czech girl in 2006 who was sent away from school because she was the only pupil without a measles vaccination, and therefore considered a threat to the others. But they were all vaccinated?!”

    cuz I couldn’t find a mic drop.

    Well done.

    #72730
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    @ Dr. D

    “Everyone just going about being as illogical as is humanly possible to be, that is indeed hell to me, only added by the extension of using their blinding, hypocritical illogic to be as oppressive as possible to be.”

    Well, aside from the final “as possible to be” (hyperbolic overkill), I wish to express my empathetic sympathy. My relationship with society since age 16 has felt like the woman in this clip:

    Alone

    Nonetheless, bitterness, even about life among body snatchers, is just, as aways, bitter. Turns you into a pod person without requiring a pod!

    I’m sure the end days of Atantis were equally maddening.

    #72731
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    Overkill
    Something about a pop-eyed tall man in a sharkskin suit, you know?

    #72732
    Mr. House
    Participant

    https://www.defenseone.com/business/2021/04/hypersonic-missile-fails-test-launch-b-52-bomber/173186/

    F-35 doesn’t fly
    vaccines don’t prevent disease
    media can’t tell the truth
    Epstein didn’t kill himself

    WINNING!

    #72733
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    This doesn’t make sense. Doublespeak? Doublethink?

    Colorado vaccination site shuts down early after 11 people have ‘expected‘ adverse reactions to the Covid-19 vaccine, officials say

    “Two of the patients were transported to a hospital…”
    https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/08/us/colorado-vaccination-site-pauses-adverse-reactions-trnd/index.html

    #72734
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    @ Dr. D

    ““Humans Were Apex Predators for Two Million Years (Phys.org)”

    This is complete bulls—t, and shows this man has never been outside a parking lot. Spend a week in Alaska and tell me all about how “apex” you feel.”

    Actually it makes good sense. Why do we sweat? Let’s us run long time, kill you good. We could outtire most animals. AFter several escape burts, they couldn’t escape that weird buncha monkets with sharp sticks. Add that “weird bunch” aspect where we all seem to know what we’re doing together even when we’re apart.

    I suspect you’re just knee-jerking against perceptions of “liberal-leftist” homo sapient specist guilt tripping on how homo saps has been an extinction event since it first discovered fire. But the evidence indeed shows we’re wired mostly for meat, and our preference when food is abundant is for lots of meaty meat, and it’s quite plausible that homo saps were indeed the apex predators back in the day: we have been the apex predator through all recorded history, with all the major predators retreating against our insurpassable capacity to form cooperative killing groups. I see no reason for you to state., especially with empathic certainty, that we weren’t apex predators before we started making records or at least large enough middens to analyze for dietary evidence.

    Don’t like people around you lying? Then stop making up bullshit and citing it as truth. A person has to start somewhere, might as well begin at the beginning of all: you, your personal self, the place where the cosmos, as you know it, consciously began. It’s that simple. You may get crucified, yea, even by your own reflection in the mirror, but Jesus handed Pilate’s ass to him before Pilate handed him to the crowds. Crucifixion ends after a day or so. A guilty conscience last the rest of one’s life.

    37 Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.37 “You are a king, then!” said Governor Pilate. King Jesus answered with abandonment, “You say that I am a king. Instead, in fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”

    ”38 Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I find in him no fault at all.38 “What is truth?” retorted Pilate. With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him.”
    ***
    37 “You are a king, then!” said Governor Pilate. King Jesus answered with abandonment, “You say that I am a king. Instead, in fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”

    38 “What is truth?” retorted Pilate. With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him.”

    Moral: quit trying to reform Pilate. Reform yourself. Once you’ve mastered that authority, you might affect some genuine change out there.

    #72735
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    @ Mr. House

    “Epstein didn’t kill himself”

    And might not even be dead.

    #72736
    Mr. House
    Participant

    I’d prefer if elvis wasn’t dead, but i take what life gives me. Bubba Ho Tep is another great movie if people are bored during these trying times.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubba_Ho-Tep

    #72737
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    I really shoud’ve posted this here, not yesterday’s thread, since we’re discussing the issue here:

    This apparently passes for critical thinking these days:

    The Doomsday Prophecy of Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche A Belgian virus expert has scared the Internet by claiming the COVID-19 vaccines will doom humanity. No need to panic.

    Firstly, the headline: “scared the internet”. The internet is now a scarable entity. No, he didn’t mean that. He means… some people on the internet are frightened by what Bossche said. But, we are reassured, “there’s no need to panic”.

    I dunno: have we stopped beating our spouses yet?

    “Dr. Bossche asserts that vaccines are like antibiotics in that, when they are both overused and imperfect, they allow germs to mutate in dangerous ways. With antibiotic use, the bacteria that have developed a mutation or acquired a gene that gives them protection from the antibiotic will escape death and soon become the dominant strain. That’s antibiotic resistance. Bossche claims that the same thing will happen with the coronavirus. Because, he says, the vaccines are imperfect, they will allow the virus to keep being transmitted from person to person and thus mutate inside of us, until a dangerous new variant emerges.This is not complete nonsense.”

    Implying that it’s mostly nonsense… before establishing anty reason why it would be nonsense. Wow. Crtkl thnkng iz fun!

    Then, claims explained by analogies with minimal hard data:

    “I reached out to Dr. Paul Offit, a paediatrician specialized in vaccines and immunology and the co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine, to get his thoughts on whether antibiotic resistance and vaccine-associated immune escape are indeed comparable. “In a sense it is, but he misses the main point,” Dr. Offit told me. A vaccine shows your body an inert part of the virus so that it can make neutralizing antibodies against it. If the body ends up making low levels of these antibodies, i.e. not enough to swiftly kill the virus when you catch it, this could allow the virus to stick around in your body for a little bit and make copies of itself. Some of these copies may by chance have the right kinds of errors in their genetic code to become variants of concern, although the mutation rate of this coronavirus is quite low.

    “But if you have a vaccine that results in high levels of neutralizing antibodies, that’s not a way to create variants,” he continued. To use an analogy, if a gaggle of invaders is coming but you have only managed to round up a few soldiers, be prepared for a long siege during which the enemy might learn a thing or two about your defences and adapt. But if you have a full and overpowering army at your command, the invaders won’t stick around for long.”

    Uh, vaccines don’t think, that we know of. They don’t have a general making strategic decisions based on available virus-power and attrition rates. Darwinian logic doesn’t work like that.

    And so forth… but this is exemplary of What Is Bullshit?:

    “Our immune system is divided into two main branches: innate and adaptive. Basically, innate immunity is a bit like Dory the amnesiac fish from Finding Nemo. It doesn’t remember much. You can throw the same virus at your innate immune system and it will not remember it. It will not get any stronger fighting it each time. By comparison, the adaptive immune system has a memory built in. It remembers tiny invaders and fights them back with more vigour each time. Vaccines make use of the adaptive part of our immune system.

    Dr. Bossche, however, seems to be a big fan of the innate immune system and he worries that all of these COVID-19 vaccines and public health measures are getting in the way of our innate immune system fighting off the coronavirus. He claims that keeping people in lockdown during the pandemic is not beneficial to their innate immune system, which requires exposure to viruses and bacteria to remain in tip-top shape. This is a bad argument. As Dr. Offit pointed out to me, even at home we are exposed to legions of microorganisms. “The food you eat isn’t sterile,” he reminded me, “the dust you inhale isn’t sterile, the water you drink isn’t sterile.” We get exposed to a lot of microorganisms.”

    Well, doh. But the bacteria we most want exposure to is the KIND THAT LIVES INSIDE OUR FELLOW HUMAN BEINGS. Social distancing reduces said contact, and as the articvle’s author says: “innate immunity is a bit like Dory the amnesiac fish from Finding Nemo. It doesn’t remember much. You can throw the same virus at your innate immune system and it will not remember it. It will not get any stronger fighting it each time.”

    It needs constant reinforcement, the immune system. The adaptive part needs exposure (because t-cellscan forget over time too), the innate part needs constant raw reinforcement.

    There is too much evidence, in the main body of ummunology research, showing how reduced physical activity and social/environmental interaction correlate to reduced immune strength, for the experts in this article to morally or professionally justify spouting such bullshit. Whether they know they’re ignorant is a question I can’t answer. Monkey see monkey do explains to so much so often, alas.

    The rest of the article is raw ad hominem.straw man junk about rhetoprical tactics not medicine.

    I’ll dissect the summary:

    “Take-home message:
    – Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche is a veterinarian who recently released an open letter boldly claiming that the COVID-19 vaccines will be harmful to humanity by allowing the virus to mutate in dangerous ways”

    True.

    “- If we are worried about dangerous variants emerging, it is much riskier to allow the virus to spread between unvaccinated people”

    As if virus spread between vaccinated people doesn’t matter, when that is exactly what Bossche most fears: spread of mutated survivors among groups who’ve been given their green light-passport for social reengagement (something that seems to be running into problems as the authorities ask folks to continue masking/locking down ever after “vaccination”.

    Not to mentiona that variants will also spread between “vaccinated” people BECAUSE THEIR “VACCINE” DOESN’T RECOGNIZE THOSE VARIANTS ANY MORE THAN ANTIBODIES OF THE UNVACCINATED… EXCEPT those innate antibodies that just beat up on any stranger in town. Incidentally, there’s another apsect to this: ALlergists are investigating a line of reasoning brought forth by data analysis suggesting that the epidemic of asthma coincident with modern life isn’t just because ofd so many agricultural/industrial lung irritants in the air, but also because our immune systems are so weakened, so out of shape, that they panic and attack foreign objects that our ancestors’ immune systems apparently ignored, or so the very minor presence (compared to today) of major allergies and asthma in pre-industrial times.

    So our tenmdency to create cytokine storms and such may be part of having sissified immune systems. (Well, my sister IS a sissy. 😉 )

    “- If coronavirus variants emerge for which the current vaccines offer little to no protection, the vaccines can be reformulated to be a better fit, much like the annual flu vaccine”

    Well, jhow convenient for your job security and retirement investment portfolio. How inconvenient for us.

    “- Dr. Bossche proposes the use of a new type of vaccine based on natural killer cells, which he claims he is working on but for which there is no published evidence”

    Not if he wants to patent the final result, no. Major vaccine/drug research efforts by big pharma are also secretive. How dare hge behave like major big pharm virologists!

    #72738

    “Unless you do them at the store while an employee is watching”.

    And if the test is positive, I presume the store has to close for two weeks (or is it ten days?)

    About that baby’s blood… I and mine have noticed that for the last few years there are a number of upper crusties who look younger now than they used to, and it isn’t in a “facelift” sort of way (Pelosi comes to mind). I figured they were getting infusions of young blood. (Isn’t that Peter Thiel’s thing?)
    I make the leap that upper crusties may also have a promise from somewhere that if they or theirs needs an organ STAT, there will be one, STAT. Semi-eternal life is a better bribe, even, than $$$$.
    Now, what country could promise such a payment in exchange for services rendered?

    Thank-you Madamski, for your kind words yesterday.
    WES- it’s always a gamble to put the boat in so early. Last year we had to shovel 6″ off in April, and in October when we removed it, 7″ of snow.
    I have one religious ritual in my life: diving into the clear, fresh waters of the lake.

    #72739

    Women need iron, especially for childbearing, and meat is full of it. So the guy shows up at the cave entrance with a great big porterhouse, and she says “Come on in, handsome!” But he seals the deal with a basket of sweet, ripe berries.

    Lever.
    Wheel and axle.
    Pulley.
    Inclined plane.
    Wedge.
    Screw.

    Why isn’t the basket (container) on that list?

    #72740
    phoenixvoice
    Participant

    Discrimination for the unvaccinated has begun.

    A couple of months ago, SB 1648 was introduced to the AZ Senate in order to make it illegal in most situations to discriminate against those who have not been vaccinated against Covid-19. I hope it passes: it is needed.

    This past Saturday I received a text message around 11 am from a friend who lives at a local retirement community, letting me know that the rules had just relaxed, off-campus musicians were invited to perform at the retirement community, “masks required,” and would I come to perform at 1 pm? My plans had fallen through that day, so I thought, sure, I’ll come. I decided that one of my “Covid Survivor” T’s was great attire for the performance — the first one with outside musicians in a year. I arrived expecting to wear my mask for the performance, filled out a form, had my temperature taken, and proceded to the entertainment location. It was *outdoors*, performers were spaced *at least 6 feet from one another*, and the *audience was spaced even more than 6 feet from the performers*. None of the other performers were masked — only me. Another of the invited performers, noting my mask, let me know quietly that “performers don’t need to wear masks.” So I removed my mask. (It’s a pain to sing in a mask…when one takes in a deep breath the mask tends to enter the mouth, and doesn’t immediately leave when one starts to sing. Bleh.) After the end of the performance, the friend who had invited me explained that I was supposed to be masked, because vaccinated folks were not required to be masked, but unvaccinated folks are required to be masked.

    Whatever — I didn’t know. A peccadillo, I thought, since we were all *outdoors* and *properly spaced.*

    The event was filmed, and the video put on YouTube. The next day I, and the other performers, along with a couple staffmembers of the retirement community received an email with a link to the video, along with the caption stating that “one of the performers” had flagrantly violated the rules, performed unmasked and unvaccinated, withheld information about vaccination status from the community, and was an “anti-vaxer.” I had an uneasy suspicion that this was referencing me — but I didn’t know for certain. The next day I met with my friend from the community to jam together — and found out that I was the source of the comment. My “peccadillo” had inadvertently caused me to step on an ant-hill — and now I was being publicly slandered in a closed community where I have several computer business clients, where I have a history of performing musically, and where I am currently teaching several classes (online.)

    I have responded to the group email with the video to set the record straight — I was not fully informed before the performance of the particulars of the rule, and I’m certainly not an “anti-vaxer.” I was the youngest person there, and even the vaccine had only been available to my age cohort for 10 days as of the date of the performance! I’ve communicated with the appropriate staff of the retirement community, and they are now going to make sure that off-campus performers are informed — at the very least when they enter the campus — of the specifics of the current rules.

    But my (provable with PCR test) immunity to Covid will be ignored by this retirement community. Oh, the irony! It is highly likely that I have lifetime immunity to Covid-19. My immunity is more braodbased than the vaccine-conferred immunity that the majority of the folks at the retirement community have. (Thanks to Germ for the articles today, quite appreciated.) But I get socially slandered as being “willfully dangerous” to the people who attended the OUTDOOR performance.

    With the current guidelines in place, off-campus musicians must visually broadcast their vaccination status (via mask/no mask) to all who are at a performance. (What happened to PHI? — “protected health information” — mind, the retirement community has a medical facility, nursing facility, memory care, and therefore is governed by HIPAA regulations.)

    And what about the fact that vaccinated individuals are still able to become infected with Covid-19 and able to infect others? They want to mask the person with broadbased immunity — who probably can’t contract Covid-19 anymore, and probably can’t infect others — and unmask the peopole who *can* contract Covid-19 and *can* infect others? This is lunacy.

    And, although the concept is not (yet!) mainstream, it looks like asymptomatic Covid-infected folks are highly unlikely to infect others, even when in close quarters. So, as long as an off-campus musician is “feeling well” and doesn’t have Covid symptoms, the possibility of infeacting anyone present is very low.

    Argh. If I weren’t already immune to Covid, I think that I would have a T-shirt printed up that states “my maks protects me from the unmasked vaccinated folks.” I’d wear my mask and emphasize that it was to protect me from *them.* But that would be a little ridiculous, considering that I’m post Covid. And considering that all Covid did was make me rather ill for 2 days, temporarily lose taste and smell, and feel like I was slowly “getting better” for about 4 days.

    If I had other venues to perform in, I’d probably take the high road and simply avoid the place. But, at the moment, I don’t have other venues. My desire to hone my performance skills is high — and they are a very forgiving audience (when it comes to music…not always so forgiving when it comes to vaccination status.) I had not performed for over a year.

    Come on, AZ Senate, get SB 1648 passed, send it to the other legislature, send it to the govenor…this is ridiculous and we need this. I can’t be the only person dealing with this sort of discrimination.

    #72741
    John Day
    Participant

    Vanden Bossche vs ex Pfizer CEO.
    Don’t take sides.
    Both make valid points with a little gray in-between. Vanden Bossche says millions of chickens died of a mutated worse chicken virus when the other half got a vaccine that protected them from dying from that ramped up mutation, which they spread to the unvaccinated.
    This is NOT fully analogous, but would be if we lived in massive open prisons, like on the Texas border, for instance.
    Yes, innate immune response can do some down and some up gyrations right after vaccination.
    The issue of whether we are marked for culling and this is part of the mechanism strikes me as more important.

    #72742
    zerosum
    Participant

    (Ivermectin) Stromectol
    I got an ally, my GP, to help me get the Ivermectin prescription filled. The Pharmacies that I called are back order.
    I’ll keep you updated on any progress and results.

    #72743
    John Day
    Participant

    How is power wielded in the Western World?
    Power, as we know it, is the capacity to compel other people to carry out actions which are designated by the powerful.
    There is the carrot of payment in money, goods, services or favors, and the stick of violence and/or deprivation.

    Since WW-2 the financial power of global reserve currency status has rested with the American Federal Reserve banking system.
    To participate in global markets, any entity needs to have $US to trade in goods and services.
    To obtain $US an entity must provide something of value in trade for them.
    To create $US the US Federal Reserve system has to promise to back those dollars up with other dollars later, and the US Federal Government promises to accept those dollars with a promise of paying them back later with a little extra for the privilege. That creates an exponentially expanding stock of $US in the world.

    At some point there are more $US than the world needs or desires, so the world will want something else, like American goods and services.
    When those dollars are repatriated to the US, they drive up the price of the goods and services the world wants, and they increase the number of dollars within the US.
    If those dollars in the US circulate freely, then other prices are increased in the US. Inflation.
    It is in the interests of those holding power to keep the world desirous of $US, or their structure of extracting goods and services from the rest of the world breaks down.

    When President Nixon ran out of gold to back the $US (Vietnam war bled gold from the US) King Faisal of Saudi Arabia was induced to agree to only accept $US in payment for oil, (the Shah of Iran did the same) and to recycle any excess dollars into US Treasury debt.
    The Petro-Buck was created.

    Threats to the Petro-Buck have included The Arab Oil Embargo (dealt with financially), the Iranian revolution (dealt with militarily and by secret agreements, then various forms of overt/covert warfare), the Iraqi sale of oil outside of the $US market (Iraq wars), the Libyan plan for a gold backed African currency outside the $US club (you know what Saddam got), and so on. A whole lot of violence has been needed to maintain demand for $US in the new millennium.
    Violence did seem to be working, but more and more tribute-paying countries, tired of being bled are testing the Western Power Structure.
    I sense that the time for a global reserve currency change is near. It stands to reason. We don’t use the Pound Sterling anymore.
    These regimes don’t last.

    Resorting to violence to support a financial empire is a sign of weakness, not of strength.

    Failure of violence is a further sign of weakness. Violence has failed to bring Venezuela back into the fold of blood donors to the Western Empire.
    The extractive $US global trade network, the extraction mechanism, is now used as a means of violent coercion, starving the citizens of Venezuela, and depriving them of medicines and tools they need.

    Futile gestures , like $US-sanctioning Russian and Chinese politicians are an embarrassing public display of terminal weakness.
    They announce that the current financial regime is a throw-away, running on fumes, and that these “tough sanctions” are being displayed to convince the folks at home that the $US remains almighty, because they, most of all, need to stay convinced of that.

    The rest of the world, including Russia, China, Iran, Turkey and India, has long been exploring global trade alternatives to the $US regime, and quietly testing them out. The most prudent course for TROTW is to take baby steps, as it is doing, and await a $US financial crisis, like 2008, then to just increase use of the alternative systems, and open them to other participants, free of charge, free of tribute extraction.

    The US won’t be able to buy F-35s after that. Americans will have to bid global prices for anything that can be exported, as their wages become almost worthless, like in 1979, but with finality, this time.

    The “Global War On Terror” has failed to solidify the US/Fed. as global hegemon for all time.
    What’s Plan-B?
    Oh, that’s for our billionaire owners to decide amongst themselves.
    Waddaya mean they are “not decision capable”?
    Whaddaya mean, “we’re on our own”?
    Whadday mean, “useless eaters”?
    http://www.johndayblog.com/2021/04/all-power-off.html

    #72744
    John Day
    Participant

    .johndayblog.com/2021/04/all-power-off.html

    Eleni sends this “explains it all” article from mythbuster Alastair Crooke.
    ​ The key point here surely is whether the élites’ Great Re-set – to reinvent themselves as leaders of the ‘re-vamped’ values of liberalism, overlayered by a newly up-dated, AI and robot-led, post-modernity – is destined to succeed, or not.
    Continued​ ‘westification’ of the globe – the principal component to ‘old’ liberal globalism – though tarnished and largely discredited, remains mandatory, as made clear in the cogent reasoning recently advanced by Robert Kagan: Absent the justifying myth of ‘seeding democ racy across the world’ around which to organise the empire, the moral logic of the entire enterprise begins to fall apart, Kagan argued (with surprising frankness). He thus asserts that the U.S. empire abroad is required – precisely in order to preserve the myth of ‘democracy’ at home.​ ​An America that retreats from global hegemony, he argues, would no longer possess the cohesive binding to preserve America as liberal democracy, at home either.
    strategic-culture.org/news/2021/03/15/leviathan-mobilises-for-decisive-battle/

    ​There’s this deeply and extensively researched new book out in Germany, kind of about the insider-trading around 9/11, and some other things. He followed that money, picking up the trails where others left off, when they died or other interruptions took place.
    ​ Lars shows in detail how 9/11 enabled a state of emergency, a permanent Continuity of Government (COG) in the U.S. and mass surveillance of U.S. citizens – connecting the dots all the way from missing trillions of dollars in the Pentagon to NSA data mining and leading U.S. neocons. The latter had been praying for a “Pearl Harbor” to reorient US foreign policy since 1997. Their prayers were answered beyond their wildest dreams.
    The investigation eventually displays a startling road map: the war on terror as a business model. However, as Lars also shows, in the end, much to the despair of U.S. neocons, all the combined sound and fury of 9/11 and the Global War on Terror, in nearly two decades, ended up bringing about a Russia-China strategic partnership in Eurasia.
    thesaker.is/bombshell-book-in-germany-revives-9-11-as-a-business-model/

    Tessa softens the blow.
    We are living, breathing, touching, feeling, loving human beings, after all.
    Love and Unity During the Ugly Attempt at the Great Reset
    This story is about being grounded as we push back against the Grand Bulldozer.
    tessa.substack.com/p/unity

    #72745
    Polder Dweller
    Participant

    Seems the French have lost the plot – face masks required on the beaches.

    Red: all beaches, Yellow: some beaches, Green: no beaches

    #72746
    Polder Dweller
    Participant

    Key didn’t come through. Red = mask obligatory on all beaches, yellow = on some beaches and green = not required.

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 73 total)
  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.